Get Thee Up into a Fake Mountain

If you felt like building a 2,000 meter mountain in the Netherlands, which features would you like to add? Journalist and accidental landscape visionary Thijs Zonneveld wants to know. Suggestions have included everything from hydroelectric power to affordable housing to a vast, dark interior that would shelter the first cave habitat in Holland.

If you still don’t take this latter-day Babel seriously, rest assured: as of September 27, the Die Berg Komt Er became an official foundation. What began as a joke has now turned into an enthusiastic movement, with serious proposals from architects, chemists, green energy experts and transportation advisors. The rhetoric may be techno-utopian, but the outpouring of support indicates that Zonneveld touched on a real longing for a nation-scale project. After all, when was the last time God asked the internet for suggestions on creation?

Thijs Zonneveld will be at the Next Nature Power Show on November 5th to show us how to build a mountain from scratch.